South Korea fines Samsung over Galaxy GOS throttling

South Korea's Fair Trade Commission fined Samsung after finding the company misled consumers by advertising the Galaxy S21 series, S22 series and Galaxy Tab S8 series as delivering "the ultimate mobile gaming experience" without disclosing that its Game Optimizing Service (GOS) throttles CPU and GPU performance during demanding games.

The commission sued Samsung over the marketing claims, and a court has ordered the fine.

The FTC said GOS automatically throttles CPU and GPU performance when users run demanding games, a behavior that customers reported caused freezes, lags and lower graphics quality.

The commission said Samsung engaged in deceptive marketing by hiding preset performance limits.

Samsung issued a software update that it says addresses the issue and allows users to remove the limits imposed by GOS.

The company argued GOS is a safety feature that ensures stable gameplay during long gaming sessions.

Samsung said it will appeal and maintains it did nothing wrong, noting the GOS update was pushed shortly after the devices' release in March 2022.

Other domestic and international lawsuits over GOS have already concluded or been withdrawn.